Legal Advocacy & Impact Litigation

We work strategically and collaboratively with co-counsel partners, community organizations, and named plaintiffs to bring impact litigation that represents broad classes of children and youth across multiple public systems.

Browse Legal Cases

Focus area
Case type
Jurisdiction
Status

Antioch Unified School District Settlement

Filing date
2015-03-25
This agreement addresses the District's failure to identify, evaluate and provide special education services and supports to African American students with disabilities, and the unnecessary exclusion of African American students through excessive discipline.

Planned Parenthood V. Promesa Behavioral Health

Filing date
2016-02-19
Alleges group home staff denied foster youth access to reproductive health care services, forced youth to waive their right to confidential medical care, confiscated foster youths’ contraceptives, and forced foster youth to allow staff into youths' exam rooms during gynecological appointments.

Alicia B. V. Dannel Malloy

Filing date
2015-12-29
This Superior Court lawsuit contends that the sub-standard alternative education offered to expelled children, who are disproportionately students of color, violates equal protection guarantees of both the state and U.S. Constitutions.

Texas Education Agency Administrative Complaint

Filing date
2015-05-27
This complaint concerns the unlawful practice of thirteen Texas school districts forcing their most vulnerable students out of school through court procedures for truancy.

Sanchez v. California Interscholastic Federation

Filing date
2015-02-02
This case asserts the rights of homeless youth to fully participate in school, including extracurricular activities.

Dallas County Truancy Court

Filing date
2013-06-10
This federal civil rights complaint concerns the use of criminal courts to prosecute youth for truancy, and the way that school district's violations of students' civil and educational rights directly contribute to this problem.

Bryan Independent School District

Filing date
2013-02-20
Bryan Independent School District's use of school resource officers to issue criminal sanctions for a range of minor student misbehavior unlawfully impacts African-American students, who are "cited" at a rate four times that of other students.

Jessica K. v. Eureka City School District

Filing date
2013-12-18
NCYL brought this case on behalf of four students to challenge years of intentional discrimination by the District based on their race, sex, and disability status.

T.R. v. Dreyfus

Filing date
2009-11-24
In Washington state, Medicaid-eligible children with serious mental health issues are often forced to seek the intensive care they need in state institutions and foster care.